Emano Uy
“This is my stand and I am sending a message that we mean business in our place. What they enjoy is only a privilege extended to them and they have no right to trample on our rights. I have always been supporting them but they didn’t respect us.”
Oloy says he ordered Hanjin to stop operations
Susan Palmes
Tagoloan Mayor Paulino Emano has owned the responsibility of ordering Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Corp. from stopping its operations in the Misamis Oriental town due to alleged violations. The Mayor also lashed out at Hanjin for allegedly disrespecting Tagoloanons. But the brother of Cagayan de Oro Vice Mayor Vicente Emano denied his men threw blows at a hanjin driver identified as Baz Arturo Pabelic during a confrontation at a construction site last Saturday.
“What happened was that my men and some police officers went to the construction site to serve my order. Hanjin did not comply with our agreement.”
said Emano. He said he earlier gave Hanjin the green light to start construction in his town provided that it secured a building permit and secure an environmental compliance certificate.
While the mayor’s men were serving the stop order, Emano said, Pabelic arrived and started taking pictures of people who were camped outside the construction site. “Yes, it is true that my men took his camera because he took pictures of innocent people,” said Emano. He said it was Pabelic who provoked the villagers. Emano said Roger Achas , a former president of Tagoloan’s Association of Barangay Councils, merely advised Pabelic to leave and avoid further confrontation. Pabelic, he said, passed the group at least four times. “Wasn’t that a provocation?”
Emano said he was forced to order hanjin to stop its operations because it was “insulting the people of Tagoloan by not complying with the law.”
The Mayor said, “This is my stand and I am sending a message that we mean business in our place. What they enjoy is only a privilege extended to them and they have no right to trample on our rights. I have always been supporting them but they didn’t respect us.”
May 3, 2008 at 1:02 am
Haha, ganyan lang pala ang problema tapos overreacting kana Paulino. Ang haba-haba na nang panunungkulan mo dyan sa Tagoloan pero wala akong narinig na may nainvite ka ng mga investor. Tapos ngayon may mga malaking pinipressure mo pa. Ang dapat gawin mo dahil ang Hanjin ay isang bilyon dolyares na investment, kinausap mo sana ang mga agencies ng ibat-ibang sangay ng gobyerno na may kaugnayan sa permit na sinabi mo at hindi lang ikaw ang magdecide sa kapalaran ng Hanjin dahil hindi lang para sa iyo at sa mga Tagoloanon ang project na yan kundi sa mga taga Cagayan de Oro din, buong Misamis Oriental, buong isla ng Mindanao at higit sa lahat sa buong Bansang Pilipinas! How the hell you stop that huge investment with your power. Your not the only master man!
May 11, 2008 at 9:40 am
“A continuing plot to discredit”
What is happening right now with the Hanjin project located within the Phividec Industrial Estate in the Municipalities of Villanueva and Tagoloan, Province of Misamis Oriental is a continuing maneuver and power play by a group of individuals who would want to take, for themselves, the credit for the multi-faceted opportunities of growth and development now being afforded to these municipalities.
It will be remembered that a couple of months ago, before Hanjin had finally decided to locate their shipyard project in these two municipalities, the same group of individuals desperately tried to discredit the two municipalities by bloating an issue that these two LGU’s were allegedly blocking the US$2-billion shipyard project.
Their clear and apparent motive is to have this project be put up or built in their own backyard or in any other location where their influence would prevail. There were munificent offers made to Hanjin such as in the City of General Santos, in the Sarangani Province, in the Municipality of Balingasag in the same Province of Misamis Oriental and in the island of Camiguin.
Hanjin is a shipyard assembly that needs thousands of labor force. As conservatively estimated, the project will need about 15,000 to 20,000 workers during the construction phase and 30,000 to 40,000 workers when it is already operational. Obviously, this shipyard complex is a labor intensive project that every LGU wants to have. We know that this is the primary solution in addressing the ever growing unemployment problem in every locality. The consequent domino effects will surely be felt in the local economy wherein thousands of people will have the purchasing power and millions of taxes will be collected by the host municipalities after the expiration of the tax holidays.
When the news came that Hanjin will temporarily stop their operation due to permits and licenses, and some other concerns, such as the road right of way per letter addressed to Director Ninfa Along-Albania, the Administrator of Phividec Industrial Estate Authority, this group of individuals again took an adverse position after seeing the event as an opportunity for them to give a final blow and knock down the opportunities of the two municipalities. Moreover, this group consists of individuals who are masters of issue fabrication and manipulation. They intentionally coined and circulated the word “withdrawal” of Hanjin instead of “temporary” stoppage of operation. At first, it seems that they had succeeded in their questionable intentions. Both the print and broadcast media have capitalized and sensationalized the fabricated issues in local and national scale.
As a consequence of the media manipulation and maneuvering, the mayors of Tagoloan and Villanueva became the victims of the power play. Mayor Paulino “Oloy” Emano of Tagoloan was allegedly accused of the Php 400 million bribery and extortion while Mayor Juliette T. Uy of Villanueva was falsely, but deliberately linked to the claimed cornering of the supply of steel.
An average person cannot help but ask, how could the Mayor of Tagoloan be possibly bribed of such amount when Hanjin is so careful in their dealings with the government in view of the ZTE deal scandal?
In his affidavit, Mayor “Oloy” Emano has cleared Hanjin from the allegations that it had offered him P400 million in contracts in exchange for special favors from the municipal government. That they are trying to link the lady mayor of Villanueva to an imaginary proposition of allegedly cornering the steel supply is a clear showing of the shallow minds behind the proposition, it being a fact that Hanjin is itself one of the major players in the steel industry in Korea and in the world.
We cannot understand why our public officials appear to be scrambling to make it appear that they are saving Hanjin from withdrawing its shipyard project in the two municipalities. It seems that they are convinced that Hanjin is really withdrawing its US$ 2-billion investment project when in truth and in fact there is just temporary stoppage of work pending full compliance of documentary requirements.
The former mayor of Cagayan de Oro, now the Vice Mayor of the city, Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano wants to go to Korea and will kneel down before them if necessary, just to convince the Koreans not to withdraw. His son, Congressman Yevgeny “Bambi” Emano of the 2nd district of Misamis Oriental, together with Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez (2nd District) and Camiguin Representative Pedro Romualdo wants to have an immediate investigation by the trade and ethics committees of the House of Representatives for the “sudden withdrawal of Hanjin”. The City Mayor of Iligan City, Lawrence Cruz has sturdily expressed support to such Congressional inquiry.
The City Mayor of Cagayan de Oro, Constantino “Tinnex” Jaraula, however, has different agenda in mind. He is offering to Hanjin the Bulua Market for “free” to become a temporary training Center like in the Municipality of Villanueva, the host municipality. The Governor of Misamis Oriental, Governor Oscar “Oca” Moreno has asked Malacañang to make him the head of the task force in convincing the Koreans not to withdraw.
It may seem that our public officials are acting upon the honest dictates of their offices and be the champion of their own cause in the process. On the other hand, they appear to be suspiciously acting as the culprits on the overall scenario. True or not, it is very evident that there is a conspiracy of vested interests among them. It may be deeply rooted in our culture, the crab mentality. The Koreans are just here to invest nothing more nothing less.
Official opinion of the Local Government Unit of Villanueva.
June 20, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Driving away big investors
Jose C. Sison
Philippine Star
Vigilance is truly necessary nowadays because of the rampant graft and corrupt practices committed in just about any deal or project where the government has a say one way or the other. The prevailing presumption is that in any multi-million peso/ dollar undertaking, dirty money changes hands; that government officials and/or powerful, influential persons are on the take. This mindset is caused by the administration itself because of the many perceived anomalies that have remained unresolved due to cover up attempts.
Unfortunately however this vigilance has sometimes been abused and converted into a political tool by the opposition especially in the legislative branch. The political opposition has acquired a predilection to investigate and always smells something fishy in any big ticket projects. The impression readily formed in the public mind is that they just also want to have a slice of the delicious pie.
This is so noticeable in the ongoing ruckus surrounding the ship building projects of the Korean firm Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. Inc. (HHIC) in Subic, Zambales and Misamis Oriental.
Actually Hanjin has been doing development projects here since 1973. The press has not just focused on its company background. Hanjin then was known as Hanil Development Corporation. The company changed its name from Hanil to Hanjin only in 1994. This is the same company that has successfully completed numerous development projects in our country tremendously benefiting us now. In fact “Hanil” always rings a bell to me as the only foreign contractor that dared to operate in rebel infested areas and risking their valuable equipments thereby contributing to the significant country side economic development so vital in solving peace and order problems.
In Misamis Oriental itself where the company is now putting up a shipbuilding facility, it constructed the Iligan-Cagayan-Butuan Road in 1973 during those dangerous times of insurgency in Mindanao. Today that road is still cited as one of the country’s best highways. It is also the same company that successfully completed the Manila LRT (Light Rail Transit) Line 2 System, the Batangas Container Terminal and the Manila North Harbor Development.
The goodwill and reputation it has established here with the considerable number of development projects it has successfully completed somehow raise doubts on the veracity and accuracy of the anomalies that it is now being accused of. The company cannot simply afford to risk its reputation by committing the alleged wrong doings attributed to it. The charges seem to have been blown out of proportion and given so much media hype so attractive to grandstanding Senators.
Of course if Hanjin has transgressed our laws, it should be investigated and held liable. But what is happening now is that because of too much publicity, the company has already been pictured as involved in a bribery/extortion on the construction of the shipbuilding facility Mindanao and in an environmental degradation for building its employees’ housing facilities allegedly in the heart of a dense forest in Subic.
Thus a mere meeting between Hanjin’s Project Manager and the Tagoloan and Villanueva Town Mayors in Mindanao has immediately been interpreted as an attempt to bribe the said town officials with a P400 million contract. What transpired in the meeting actually concerns the possibility of hiring local contractors in the hauling of aggregates on a competitive basis so as to help said contractors generate business. In fact the PNP has declared the matter closed with the submission of sworn statement by the parties involved that neither bribery nor extortion happened. In any case, this issue is better left for resolution by the prosecution and the courts rather than by the Senate especially because of the attendant publicity being generated.
On the other hand numerous articles have been published in various newspapers about the alleged irregularities in the construction of the apartment site of its employees in a forest area in Subic allegedly containing about three hundred or more trees. But as it turns out the site is more or less located in the same area previously used by the US Navy as an ammunition depot and later used as a depot or factory by two other locators. Without verifying first that only about 43 trees were cut, reckless accusations and finger pointing are already made.
Critics have also tried to harp on the premature start of the apartment construction before securing the DENR Environmental Clearance Certificate. They did not first find out that Hanjin’s investment in SBMA could not have been finalized without first providing accommodations to the Koreans who would supervise and train Filipino workers thereby prompting SBMA to give the go signal taking into consideration that the area was anyway already used by the US Navy and two other locators.
The point here is that if ever there are short cuts done or irregularities committed then let them be rectified to assure that our laws are complied with and our environment duly protected. But these steps can be done without too much publicity that may eventually result in driving away big time investors like Hanjin.
In building the Subic Shipyard facilities alone, Hanjin’s initial investment for Phases I and 2 amounts to US$1.6 billion. The shipyard has a capacity of 80,000 tons/year up to 550,000 tons capable of building large-scale vessels such as 12,000 TEU Container such that by year 2017 its sales would reach US$3.9 billion generating employment of about 30,000 at its peak.
The Mindanao shipbuilding facility on the other hand will generate income and employment also for 30,000 workers. Hanjin will most likely spend P4.6 billion a year during peak time. Labor constitutes 40% of shipbuilding cost that goes directly to the workers’ pockets. With the US$60 million price tag on the first vessel for example, around $24 million or P984 million would go to workers salaries. The lives of the people in Northern Mindanao would surely improve especially considering that said shipbuilding facility would generate more business and tourism.
Indeed the construction of these shipyards would put the Philippines on the list of countries with the largest facilities after Korea, Japan and China. The world will thus be taking notice of the Philippines as an investment option.
Let us not squander these opportunities by engaging again in politics and resorting to those useless and grandstanding investigations “in aid of legislation” that may drive away big time investors like Hanjin that has reportedly been repeatedly cited as the World’s Outstanding Shipbuilder.
June 20, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Hanjin just left for vietnam!!!!!cut the crap!!!!
June 21, 2008 at 9:35 am
Good riddance!
August 12, 2008 at 6:43 am
i am privy to the negotiations before during and after this fiasco because i work for hhic. it is true, the bottom line is that emano and villanueva became too greedy. the koreans backed out because of the frivolous and horrendous terms these two mayors were asking. they were not contented with special concessions that they were asking from the company, there was a point in time that it seemed they wanted to run the operations of the company themselves. it was very embarassing because although i work for the koreans, i am still a filipino. gov moreno, on the other hand was inuitile when trouble in the negotiations broke out. it seemed he could not do anything. many times i went to his office asking him to intervene, but sadly, he did not do anything at all. he must still be beholden to the emanos. the people of tagoloan and villanueva lost a lot with the pull-out of hanjin. projected and expected outflux of money when the shipyard started operations in 2010 would have been in the vicinity of 300M pesos a month as payment for salaries and wages, payment for goods and services, etc. losers!